The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Dependency claim anger
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will launch an attack on Scotland’s “gangmaster state” today, claiming almost nine out of 10 families do not contribute to the nation’s wealth.
She is due to criticise a culture which has left just 12% of households paying more in tax than the “benefits” they receive through public spending.
The remarks are based on official figures, but last night Ms Davidson’s opponents were comparing the speech to the recent gaffe by US presidential candidateMittRomney, whowas recorded as saying 47% of Americans were “dependent” on government.
Ms Davidson is expected to suggest that the bloated state sector north of the border has created a “corrosive sense of entitlement”, and that it is only the Conservatives who can lift Scots out of the “depression of dependency”.
In a draft of a speech she was due to deliver today at a fringe event at the Tory conference inBirmingham, she says: “It is staggering that public sector expenditure makes up a full 50% of Scotland’s GDP and only 12% of households are net contributors, where the taxes theypay outweigh the benefits they receive through public spending.”
Ms Davidson will accuse theSNPof being “a centralising, big-state old Labour with a tartan trim waving a government- distributed saltire”. She will say: “Only the Scottish Conservatives genuinely believe removing the restraint of government diktat is the best way to build strong communities.”
The SNP seized on the comments last night, with Kenneth Gibson MSP saying: “At least Mitt Romney only insultedaroundhalf of Americans... while Ruth Davidson believes almost 90% of Scots do not ‘contribute’ to society. It is an outrageous slur.” Foreign Secretary William Hague has suggested that keeping Scotland in the union is key to maintaining Britain’s standing in the world.
In a thinly-veiled attack on the SNP’s independence plans, he said the “immense assets and advantages” which the UK enjoys on the global stage were achieved as a whole, not by its constituent nations.
MrHague said: “Think of theimmenseassetsandadvantages that are ours. This is achieved, let us note, not by England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland separately, but by the United Kingdom, including Scotland, together.”